Central to the Hamatsa ceremonies is the story of some brothers who got lost
on a hunting trip and found a strange house with red smoke emanating from its roof.
When they visited the house they found its owner gone, but one of the house
posts was a living woman with her legs rooted into the floor, and she warned
them about the frightful owner of the house, who was named Baxbaxwalanuksiwe,
a man-eating giant with four terrible man-eating birds for his companions
(including Gwaxwgwakwalanuksiwe'/man-eating raven; Galuxwadzuwus/ Crooked-Beak
of Heaven; and Huxhukw/supernatural crane who cracks skulls of men to suck out their brains).
One version of the story describes the giant with mouths all over his body. According to
another version, the brothers lured Baxbaxwalanuksiwe into a pit and threw hot stones
on top of him until he died. With the death of the giant, the men gained mystical power
and supernatural treasures from him. These included wooden whistles, a bear mask,
bird masks adorned with wooden skulls, costumes, and a Hamatsa pole, all used in later
actual rituals. Variations of the myth abound within the Kwakwaka'wakw culture, but this
man-eating giant was aided by an old hag, Qominoqa (possibly Dzunukwa), who gathered
bodies for him to consume.
Text by Wikipedia
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